Ukraine is hoping to see production of its Flamingo ground-launched long-range cruise missile, which just broke cover this past weekend, ramp up significantly by the end of the year. Manufacturer Fire Point is aiming to have the capacity to make seven Flamingos every day by October, though there are questions about how realistic any expanded production goals might be. Reportedly with a range of 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) and a warhead weighing 2,535 pounds (1,150 kilograms), the missile presents a much farther-reaching and more destructive weapon than any missile or one-way-attack drone available to Ukraine now.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky talked briefly about Flamingo during a sit-down with journalists yesterday. The Associated Press, which was first to reveal the missile’s existence, has also now reported additional details provided by Fire Point. Previous reports said that Flamingos have already been used in strikes on targets in Russia, but how many have been produced so far is not known.
“The tests of this missile were successful. And so far, it is the most successful missile we have – it flies 3,000 kilometers, which is important. I believe that we cannot talk much about it until we can use hundreds of missiles,” Zelensky said yesterday, according to Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform. “By December, we will have more of them. And by the end of December or in January-February, mass production should begin.”
Fire Point says it builds around one Flamingo every day now and is aiming to get that rate up to at least seven by October, according to the AP. Seven missiles per day would translate to 2,555 built annually. As an aside, something reportedly happened with the first production batch that caused the missiles to end up pink colored, which led to the Flamingo name.
New imagery published by the AP of the missile, seen below, also confirms that Flamingo is just a very large weapon, overall. We also now have a direct look at the warhead inside, which has a pointed front end that may indicate a design intended to offer increased penetration against harder targets. It is possible that the warhead could even be a repurposed air-dropped bomb.
Beyond the claimed range and warhead size, firm details about Flamingo’s capabilities remain limited. It is powered by a single jet engine and is launched with the help of a rocket booster via a rail mounted on a two-axle trailer.
With the new AP imagery in hand, experts and observers have drawn comparisons between what can be seen of the Flamingo’s engine and the AI-25TL turbofan, best known as the powerplant for the L-39 Albatros jet trainer. This would be a logical choice given that the AI-25 series was originally developed by Ivchenko in what was then Soviet Ukraine, and Ukrainian firm Motor Sich continues to produce versions today. Ukraine is also an operator of L-39s. The Albatros has been and continues to be a very popular design worldwide, with thousands made to date, opening up an additional avenue for sourcing engines.
As TWZ has noted previously, Flamingo’s reported capabilities also align extremely closely with another cruise missile called the FP-5, which is offered by a company called Milanion in the United Arab Emirates. Milanion describes the FP-5 as having a wingspan of 19.6 feet (six meters), a maximum takeoff weight of 13,228 pounds (6,000 kilograms), and a warhead weighing 2,205 pounds (1,000 kilograms), as well as a top speed of 590 miles per hour (950 kilometers per hour) and a cruising speed of 528-559 miles per hour (850–900 kilometers per hour). The missile is said to feature a satellite navigation-assisted inertial navigation system guidance package that is also designed to be resistant to electronic warfare attacks.
The FP-5 moniker also fits with the designation of another known Fire Point product, the FP-1 long-range kamikaze drone. However, the exact relationship between Flamingo and Milanion’s FP-5 remains unknown.
If Fire Point can ramp up Flamingo production, it could give Ukraine a new and immensely valuable means of targeting key sites well inside Russia, and doing so in a more destructive manner. The jet-powered nature of the missile also offers speed and suvivability benefits for penetrating deeper into Russian territory, especially compared to the converted light aircraft and other longer-range drones Ukraine relies on now for those kinds of strikes. The reported size of the warhead, combined with jet-powered speeds, would also give the missile the ability to burrow into more hardened targets, opening up all-new target sets.
As a direct comparison, the FP-1 drone, a twin-tail-boom pusher-propeller design, has a maximum range of around 994 miles (1,600 kilometers) and a 132-pound (60-kilogram) warhead, Fire Point told the AP. The company also said that FP-1s now account for some 60 percent of attacks on targets far inside Russia, further underscoring the kinds of options available to Ukraine now to prosecute those strikes.
At the same time, it remains to be seen whether Fire Point can significantly increase Flamingo production, and at what cost. The price point for a single one of the missiles is currently unknown.
“We need to consider the financing of this program,” Ukraine’s President Zelensky also said yesterday, according to Ukrinform.
Fire Point, a start-up founded in the wake of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was clear to tout its existing production capacity for the FP-1, as well as the relatively low cost of those drones, in its discussion with the AP. The company says it makes around 100 FP-1s every day at a cost of approximately $55,000.
“We removed unneeded, flashy glittery stuff” to help with producibility and lower costs, Iryna Terekh, Fire Point’s head of production, who is a trained architect, told the AP.
At the same time, Flamingo is very different in all respects to the FP-1. Still, if Fire Point can even just reach its current daily production target of seven, that could be a significant addition to Ukraine’s arsenal. In addition to its own organic capacity, Fire Point might look to leverage foreign partnerships to help expand its ability to churn out Flamingos, if it is not doing so already in cooperation with Milanion.
Regardless, Flamingo’s emergence comes at a time of particular uncertainty about how the ongoing war in Ukraine may evolve, with a new burst of discussion around ceasefire and peace proposals now swirling. U.S. authorities have also reportedly been pressing Ukrainian authorities to offer territorial and other concessions to Russia to bring the fighting to an end following a summit between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska last week.
On a strategic level, Flamingo could give Ukraine a valuable additional negotiation tool because of the broad swath of Russia it could potentially threaten. As a domestically developed weapon, Ukrainian forces would have much more freedom to employ the missiles against targets inside Russian territory. Western countries have, on-and-off, placed restrictions on the use of long-range munitions they have supplied against Russia proper, and otherwise pressured Ukraine not to strike certain categories of targets.
“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social social media network today. “[Former U.S. President] Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out?”
For Ukraine, there is a clear impetus to do whatever might be possible to increase stocks of Flamingo and help the missile live up to its full potential.
Contact the author: [email protected]